macaroni21

Oh yes, I mentioned the Pepsi douche - one of the numbers in Boys Bangkok's show. Here's a description of it from a visit report from December 2008: -- Boys Bangkok had an innovative new act this week. I shall call it the Pepsi Douche. Two muscular guys come on stage, totally naked (with erect cocks, needless to say). They dance a bit, they wrestle a bit, and then one forces the other onto the floor. The top then grabs a 1.5-litre bottle of Pepsi, agitates it and forces the fizzy liquid into the rectum of the other. Naturally, most of the Pepsi sprays all over the bar, dousing the customers in the front two rows. I think the idea is for the bottom guy to take up some of the Pepsi into his rectum and then spray it out, but if that was the aim of the act, I didn’t see any successful performance. But wait, there’s more. Customers are invited to buy/contribute a bottle (or two) of beer, to be used in a similar manner by the top on the bottom. The whole idea may appall some people, but hey, I thought it was great fun. Drinks: 250 baht.

I forgot to add that in that Sept 2010 visit, the drink price was 260 baht.

I knew that downstairs bar across the soi from Xtreme as "Boys Bangkok", but the name varied a bit depending on which signboard one was looking at. The overhead signboard said "The Boys" pairing it with Dream Boy. This photo was from March 2010: In the above photo, if you look at the extreme left edge, you will see yet another version of its name on a white signboard: "The Boys Bangkok". Another photo, from December 2010: Below is a post I made about Boys Bangkok from a visit in September 2010. Notice the huge numbers of stage boys and customers mentioned in the post. And it wasn't even high season. Boys Bangkok surprisingly enjoyable Boys Bangkok is the overshadowed sibling of Dream Boy Gogo Bar. Its chief purpose seems to be to stop the patrons of Dream Boy from drifting to a competitor bar after Dream Boy’s main show is over. A voice, in thickly German-accented English, tells customers at around 23:30h as the show ends, that they are free to take their drinks with them and go down via the back stairs to Boys Bangkok on the ground floor. “We offer you two shows for the price of one,” the voice says. “And that is vhy ve are the best gogo bar in the vorld.” And so it was that for several years now, each time I stepped into Boys Bangkok, it was via the back stairs, only to stay in the lower bar for a few more minutes before leaving. This trip I decided to do it differently. I went directly to Boys Bangkok at around 23:15h while Dream Boy’s show was still in progress upstairs. And what I found was a bar that was really what gogo should be about. The bar was mostly empty when I entered. There were no more than three or four other patrons who could not have been there long. Boys Bangkok does not open its doors until around eleven o’clock. On stage were ten boys, slim, young and mostly fresh-faced, dancing energetically in their underwear. Doing this every night had resulted in lean athletic bodies that only added to their appeal. From time to time they looked at the few of us in the audience with broad smiles, like they were truly enjoying themselves, though I knew of course that they were mainly hoping for an off. Nevertheless, dancing away, they were far more interesting to watch than the one-knee shuffle more often seen in other gogo bars. At around 23:35h, a surge of people came down from Dream Boy. All the seats in Boys Bangkok were quickly filled (including extra chairs set out beforehand; the waiters had known it would be a big crowd) leaving the last 8 – 10 patrons with nowhere to sit. With so many people in the bar, and many moving about, it was difficult to estimate numbers, but it would have been something like 80 – 90. This implied that Dream Boy must have had a very good night, with perhaps as many as 100-120 people for their show if we assume that only 3 in 4 chose to proceed down to Boys Bangkok after the show. — The ten gogo dancers made way at 23:45h for the full complement of boys. There were about 35 – 40 of them packed onto the stage, and as is always the case with Dream Boy/Boys Bangkok, most of them were rather appealing. There was considerable variety, from twinks to muscle guys, but virtually all were in good shape, with masculine demeanour. In other words, those who prefer fem boys will need to look elsewhere. They shuffled around for about 25 minutes (a bit too long), during which time I counted at least 6 boys being called down to sit with clients, with perhaps more that I didn’t spot. At this late hour, one can assume that if a client asks for a boy to sit with him, an off would almost surely follow. I found the numbers interesting. I knew that at the start of an evening’s work, there would be 50 (perhaps even as many as 60) boys working. If they were down to 35 – 40 by 23:45h, with 6 to 8 more called out by 00:15h, this suggests that on a night like this, about 20 to 25 boys got an off, giving an offing rate of about 35 – 40 percent. It’s not bad at all, especially considering that the off fee for Dream Boy/Boys Bangkok is now at 500 baht. The short show began at 00:15h; it would reinforce my belief that 30 minutes is the ideal length of a show. Too many bars stretch a show to one hour which tends to make it dreary. There were only four acts: A big cock parade by eight boys; A choreographed fast dance item by six boys, with a mix of ballet and hiphop; The “Titanic fuck” – see more below; The Pepsi douche by two biggish guys, the same act I saw a year ago and which I have described in an earlier blogpost. The “Titanic fuck”, judging by audience reaction, was the most enjoyable one. The scene opened with two characters on a bow of a ship in the iconic pose from the movie. Wind and waves came crashing and the couple drowned. The body of the male character, played by a rather macho guy, was washed away. Some time passed. The body is later discovered by three mermaids, waddling onto the stage. These three were played by the bar’s team of resident ladyboy performers. Curious, they poked at the body, and stripped him naked. Aroused, the ladyboys flipped open their fish skins revealing hard cocks, to much nervous laughter from the audience. They then fought over who would get to fuck the macho corpse. It was necrophilia and gender reversal rolled into one; it was Leonardo di Caprio fucked hard by gatoeys. Perhaps it fulfilled a secret wish of many in the audience?

I agree with @vinapu People choose to travel in groups for pragmatic reasons, and we should not be reading cultural innateness into such behaviour. Cost/economy has been mentioned by vinapu. But less obvious, yet equally powerful a factor, is linguistic comfort. Many westerners are able to speak English as a second or third language, and they can assume that in many countries that they would like to visit, such as Philippines, India or Jordan, there will be locals especially in the tourism-related places who will likewise speak English as a second or third language. If you don't speak a single word of English you may suspect that it will be very daunting to try to travel alone. The more "heartlander" or less educated person from China, Vietnam or Japan will decide that the pragmatic value of travelling in the group to overcome language barriers is important. In addition to cost considerations. Also, without English or access to travel guides in their own language, even figuring out where the attractions are or how to get there by local transport will prove difficult. Best to leave it to a tour organiser. As people in these countries get richer and better educated, with some grasp of English, they will become more independent. I see no shortage of independent travellers from China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan etc everywhere I go. Unsurprisingly, they tend to be younger, which correlates with education. It's worthwhile looking at the flip side. How many Westerners visit the secondary and tertiary cities of China or India where very little English is spoken? Some do, and then find that the assumptions they made - that people in these hinterlands also would speak some English - are wrong. Even Google Translate does not work because the people speak with a heavy provincial accent. The signboards are all in Chinese. The roadnames are all in Chinese. The museum exhibits are only explained in Chinese. In the deeper parts of China, I see packaged tourists from the West - the French, Germans, Italians, Spanish.... These travels are not cheap and these Europeans are middle-class or higher-income professionals. Yet, it still makes sense, for the same pragmatic reasons of language and information scarcity, for them to use a group tour. You notice that when I speak of the tourists in the hinterlands of China, I didn't mention Americans. It may be just the luck of the draw, but my observation is that they are few and far between. If choosing to travel in groups signals a lack of confidence in the linguistic challenge of visiting another country, at least they visit. What does it say when they don't visit at all? It's below lack of confidence - is it a fear of encountering difference?

You are right. I had meant to include the Japanese among the Indonesians and Thais, but somehow left them out. The Koreans and Chinese are more straightforward. Even then, there have been occasions when my Chinese interpreter was flummoxed by the speaker using a literary or historical allusion when saying something. It was a round-about way of making a point, but unless the listener/interpreter was as well-versed in the literary classics or history, the cursive speech can be hard to interpret. The point is, the culture of such a language allows for disagreement to be expressed in indirect ways, which can be very hard for an outsider to pick up. Everybody is smiling and saying nice things, but they are vigurously objecting to something.

On "collectivism", I think we are talking about different things at the same time (myself included), so let me try to make myself clearer. In many societies outside of the West, a person's identity is strongly anchored to a group, usually a family group (but sometimes a religious group). It manifests itself in two easily visible ways: (1) the individual feels a strong responsibility to care for and support other members of the group, and we see this for example, in the priorities of some of the moneyboys vis-a-vis the financial demands of their families back home; (2) the individual's lack of responsibility to non-members of the group, and this manifests itself in behaviour that is unsympathetic to people who are different from them (racism, caste-consciousness) and also a general lack of responsibility towards the "commons", i.e. the shared public spaces (littering, rubbish dumping, even anti-social behaviour like noise). In my mind, "collectivism" is not a good word for this difference in the way group identification and group loyalty manifest themselves. Nor is "individualism" as perceived by non-Western societies looking at the West, necessarily a good thing; they see in the West a certain selfishness in the lack of strong responsibility towards kin. Strong group loyalty does not necessarily equate with groupthink or groupie behaviour. People can feel a strong loyalty and responsibility to a group and still have strong opinions of their own. That was what I was referring to in terms of my working life in various Asian countries. They don't tailor their views into groupthink, they don't make themselves mindlessly subservient, at least not any more than can happen in the West (witness MAGA groupies). They are quite capable of thinkng inependently, inventively and creatively, and also to cast aside traditional ideas - Japan, China and Korea would not have advanced as much as they have if their people did not have the capacity to think out of the box and overturn conventional ways of doing things. In some language cultures, their way of speaking may mask the differences of opinion unless one is attuned to their speech patterns. For example, in different cultures, different meanings are assigned to "yes" (Japanese "Hai"), to the nodding of the head, to silence. Do you read "yes" as agreement? Do you read silence as consent?

True, the fun doesn't take place in the lobby, but how does lobby fun make it fun-nier? All sorts of interesting fun can be had in the room; they don't have to be vanilla. Hey guys, suggest a price for each of these service items, where the orange boxes are.

Interesting dilemma when the Asian norm is "collectivism" Is it really the norm? Or is it just a stereotype that westerners carry with them? Having spent much of my working life running around various businesses and countries in Asia, I have seen a lot of individualism. Also, there are huge differences between the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Thais and Indonesians - countries I am quite familiar with. I would rather not homogenise any impression of them. The japanese, Thais and Indonesians tend to be more self-effacing, the Chinese and Koreans can be blunt. The Thais and Indonesians incorporate social status considerations a lot into the way they speak. The others... not so much. One reason for the stereotype may arise from the language habits in many Asian cultures, where people tend to be more sensitive to others' feelings even when expressing disagreement. While fellow speakers of the language can read the subtle disagreement, I have seen my western colleagues completely deaf to the fierce argument that was going on behind the pleasant words!

Until some folks actually make their way to Silom Soi 19... and then wonder why there aren't massage parlours there. ( Or maybe there are, but staffed by middle aged women). Won't be so hilarious to them.

As Soi 6/Soi Tarntawan becomes more of a massage hub, there lies a business opportunity for the reinvention of The One. Rename itself The Big One. Remake itself into a massage parlour - you need only about 6-8 staff to make a go of it, unlike a bar that needs 15 boys to look interesting. Specialise in big, muscular boys doing massage. Once no longer a gogo bar, I presume big sums of under-the-table money need not be paid.

Even when the customer goes to the more upscale massage places like Jey Spa, Prince, S'sense, V-club or Glam's, the outlay is still less than the bars. Perhaps 1000-1500 to the shop and 2000-2500 to the boy.

9-teen is not a good example (as mentioned above) but I agree with you regarding Asian tourists. The big issues are price and performance. In the Saphan Khwai and Onnut areas, the shops take a few hundred baht and the boys expect 1000 to 1500. Performance may be uneven, but they are seldom horribly bad. In the Silom-Surawong areas, the shops take something in the upper hundreds and the boys expect perhaps 1500. Performance generally good too. From the bars, expect to pay for your drink, boy's drink, off fee and mamasan tip (total already 1500 or more) before you even leave the bar. Then expect to pay 2500 - 3000 to the boy. Performance is wildly variable from fantastic to hopeless. I am sure that's a big reason why the bars are struggling. And more so when the Asian market is a far bigger market than farang.

Every time I visit Bangkok, I will have occasion to walk Soi 6, on which 9-teen's second and third branches are located. I often find myself walking past the first branch facing Silom Road too. None of their branches is busy. A customer is just as likely to be walking into Maha, Climax, Relax Thai or Paradise as to any of the 9-teens. The only shop that, whenever I walk past, I almost always see customers entering or leaving, is Prime. There is some other reason for the proliferation of 9-teens than booming business. The question is: what is that reason?

When the jar is full, take it to Atlas Bar or NighBoys, plant it on stage and announce a jackoff contest.

What gnaws at me still (months after that Dream Boy night) is that it was my good deed that brought on the troubles to follow. There's a recent thread somewhere in this forum that goes "in Thailand, no good deed goes unpunished". And that's what seemed to have happened. It was my tipping all ten of the coyote dancers that caught the mamasan's eye. She then decided that I was a big fish to be reeled in. She came over and parked herself beside me for the rest of the evening. Maybe the lesson should be DON'T TIP the boys.

I was in Singapore one year close to their F1 season, staying in a hotel within PeterRS' map above and exprienced some road closures for their practice runs (oh, the noise!!!). I was gone by the time the actual race took place though. I recall a few observations I made while there, which might be applicable to Bangkok or not. As PeterRS mentioned, Singapore roads are nowhere as congested as Bangkok roads. Singapore also has plenty of major roads that run parallel to each other in the downtown area, sort of like a grid pattern, with roads 100 - 200m apart. If one road is closed, traffic easily diverts to a parallel road. In fact walking Singapore streets is like downtown Sydney or New York. Every 100 - 200 metres, you come to a traffic light crossing. Bangkok is not like that. Its major roads are often 1 km apart, e.g. Rama IV Rd, Sukhumvit Rd, Pethaburi Rd, and all are congested anyway. Few sois run parallel to the major roads and thus cannot serve as alternatives. Closing roads in Bangkok guarantees chaos. The F1 circuit in Singapore (the map above refreshed my memory) wasn't in the busiest part of the downtown. It was in the more picturesque part with colonial buildings and museums but even on ordinary days, these weren't the busiest roads. So diversion wouldn't cause much spillover traffic. Presumably Bangkok might consider the analogous Sanam Luang and Grand Palace area, which should not cause as much economic damage as closing Sukhumvit or Rama IV roads. However, looking at the map again, I see the Singapore has four MRT stations around the F1 circuit, so bringing in 100,000 spectators on public transport to various parts of the circuit is not a problem at all. In fact, I think there is a fifth MRT station at the bottom of the map where the Helix Bridge is. That's the station that serves the Marina Bay Sands complex. Also, there are lots of 4-star and 5-star hotels close to Singapore's F1 circuit. Tourists simply walk to the event. On both counts - insufficient public transport and absence of hotels within walking distance - the Sanam Luang/Gand Palace area is disadvantaged.

Thanks for the pic, @reader It is vaguely familiar. I must have walked past it a few times without knowing what's inside. I reckon, from the words "Lounge and Karaoke" on its front wall, that after dinner hours, the place converts to a karaoke host bar like there used to be in the Saphan Khwai area 15 - 20 years ago (maybe they're still there, haven't been in years). Is that what happens after dinner hours? The big problem I have with karaoke bars is that they expect customers to speak Thai and be familiar with Thai songs. So... it's hosts and hostesses? How many boys versus girls did you see?

It wasn't that bad. We did roll around some, but it was rushed and mechanical, and after he resisted being touched here and there, I had lost interest. The issue was that in the bar both the mamasan and he himself claimed he was versatile, but once in the room, this cannot, that cannot.... If so, mamasan could simply have told me that the boy had a prior booking. I have come across such clearcut responses in other bars; no need to lie. Same here! I know very well not to use mamasans or even to trust them, and yet here I was making the same mistake.

If it's any consolation, we all have our wtf nights. I just uploaded onto Shamelessmack an account of my own expensive train wreck. https://shamelessmacktwo.travel.blog/2025/03/25/ten-100-baht-tips-and-a-train-wreck/#more-6680

Where is Mr O's bar? Is it signed as "Mr O" or some other name?

A key difference is that I have no intention of retiring in a foreign country least of all one that does not have infrastructure for aging. I have solid relationships with my blood family. Furthermore, in my home country there are legal systems for powers of attorney, retirement homes, subsidised medical care, etc. Sure, it won't be cheap like in Thailand, but I just can't see how trusting a moneyboy to somehow show reliability and financial responsibility is a better concept.

I'm not sure I could tolerate a regular who spends his time playing beach volleyball into the night. It would frustrate me no end. I am quite happy to accept that I am an incorrigible butterfly. I would not want a relationship with any moneyboy in Thailand. I've had enough trouble maintaining a relationship in my home country with partners who share my own culture, language and of similar socio-economic status; I am almost allergic to relationships now. But I have had regulars - I think @spoon mentioned such arrangements too. These are guys I see most times that I come to Thailand; we fully understand it is transactional all the same, but it's distinctly easier and more comfortable for both of us to be transacting with someone we know and see from time to time. They don't last for very long; 2 - 3 years would be typical. for one reason or another, they vanish or they go back to their home towns and we don't see each other anymore, and soon lose touch. However, I can think of two of them who have definitely made something of their post-moneyboy lives - and I am so proud of them. Two more might have made something of their lives, but I lost touch with them quite soon after so I cannot be sure their new careers were sustained. Of the two that I am proud of, the more recent one now has a steady, proper job with an airline. He's not cabin crew, but in ground operations, based in Suvarnabhumi. As for the earlier one, that was 20 years ago. He decided to leave the massage business and go back to his Isaan town. He enrolled in a nursing school and graduated as a certified nurse. He has done well ever since. He must be 50 years old now, and perhaps a senior nurse in a local hospital. I can recall two others who also looked like they made a switch for a better career than sex work: One became a musican in a band, and last I heard, they were touring provincial towns perhaps singing at weddings. The other had to rush back to his hometown when his father had a stroke. Apparently the father ran a small motorocycle repair shop or something like that, and my moneyboy (whom I vaguely remember had a diploma in accounting or some such discipline) had to help fill the void in the business. A year later, a mutual friend told me my ex-moneyboy was now the boss. I haven't been in contact, and I wouldn't want to embarrass him by trying to keep in contact. In short, I tend to choose level-headed people to be my regulars. They are level-headed enough to know that our relationship is not ever going to be a love relationship; they never ask for money beyond services rendered (if they did they would be cut off in an instant). But their level-headedness also means they are likely to keep control over their lives and they plan forward. That said, some others have just disappeared and I have no idea what they've made of their lives. But these four - the fact that they have moved on gives me a warm feeling.

Those who responded with a smile are not very good at their trade, are they? They should have replied, "No problem, my cock very big. I can fuck you."

Ah, so there is a distinction between fake Venice and fake Italy. My bad, and rather embarrassing too, since I claim to be such a connoiseur of fake (fake love).

What??? 😆 Goes to show how tastes differ! But thanks @Raposa and @reader for the link. I tried but was thrown off by the spelling of Khymer Times.